crooked tongues magazine News Features

These were a serious oversight by us on the News section of this site, but as a masterclass in how you bring a shoe back, they're absolutely textbook, leaving other brands and their wonky efforts in the shade. It's nice to be able to spotlight them now. The Vault line had confused us a little a few years back, as we could only comprehend in-line and Syndicate, but recent seasons have established it as a collection that doesn ...

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Last year we hit up Patta about their underrated ZX 7000 with its inspiration from 'Seinfeld's parking lot Patagonia outfit for our 'Best Of '08', and their 2009 5th anniversary celebrations have meant plenty more footwear followed. adidas, PRO-Keds, Reebok, Keep and Converse makeups, plus HUF and Stussy apparel and the opening of a new store in the shape of Precinct 5 were all significant in their execution, but their return to Nike and the Air Max line was ...

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Canada had 2009 on lock in terms of gear as well as music, and Livestock's retail contribution is a serious one. Their aZX contribution was nicely subdued, with the simple looks betraying plenty of detail, and at a push, and seeing as the Toronto is an office favourite, their version of the running classic was easily one of the best 'Your City' pieces. By the end of next year you'll be tired of off-road remixes of everything, but ...

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Over the next few days we'll be taking a closer look at some of our favourite shoes from 2009 and chatting with the creative minds behind the designs. If your favourite isn't included, it's probably down to personal taste, a failure to get back with interview answers on time or because we've already conducted a Q&A this year. So don't fret. These aren't being upped in any particular order of preference, but in ...

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Every year it's the same old song in the Crooked office. Screwfaces for eleven and a half months, then the sudden realisation that it's been a good one for sneakers. That and the inevitable lament that we never kept weekly notes to make the Crooked Tongues Year In Review filter an easier process. We're attributing the glut of great shoes to two things - the wretched economic climate putting the fear of god into brands to the point ...

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No big basketball release would be complete without a plethora of colours to keep the collectors on their toes, and Kobe's fifth installment is no exception. In fact, with Bryant's shoe straight on the i-D system, and at present, a deliberate choice to keep the LeBron VII off it (a shame, but at the same time, it makes existing colourways resonate a little harder), the recently leaked shots of Mr. James's festive weapon-of-choice show something more restrained ...

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When it comes to new basketball shoes, we're picky. Most of us haven't been near a court for a while, and without acre upon acre of faded Guess denim to hid a multitude of bulky tech features, contemporary designs aren't easy to pull off. What performs isn't exactly what looks good. However, Mr. Bryant's shoes of choice have been, mostly, bar the hideous adidas Kobe 2 with its monstrous Audi influenced curves, excellent. From the ...

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For the new year, adidas's Consortium programme has ditched the partners to go it alone for a minute, and the end results seem perfectly pitched at our taste in shoes. You can't mess with the beauty of the early Torsion models, and the 8000 and SP are office favourites. Special's in particular, given the slushfest state of the nation's capital, feel very, very right. The rugged 1990 masterpiece takes colourway cues from classic adidas runners, feeling ...

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Way back at the dawn of this decade, Reebok had a nifty little style magazine campaign to highlight key heritage pieces, with wistful tales of shoes lost through misfortune accompanied by airbrushed images of the models in question. Beyond making us long for 'The Face's return, lately, we've become nostalgic for that slice of carefully synthesised nostalgia and the shoes that followed. It seems that Reebok have had a couple of significant attempts at digging in the archives ...

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This was the year when sneakers seemed to make a concerted effort to not look like they were items of athletic footwear; which proved fairly counterproductive. The Greeley, hailing from adidas Originals's Coastal division, is an interesting new design, steeped in a spot of brand history without coming off like another unwieldy hybrid. We also spotted a touch of classic Clarks in this design too, but it's implemented in a more subtle way than merely conjuring up a ...

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We couldn't get a sample to shoot in time, but there was still no way this one was getting away from the rambling Crooked treatment. Wood Wood's shoe collaborations have been uniformly excellent, and for their Nike project, what do we get? Given an evident predilection for running pieces, the pioneering simplicity of the Pegasus 83 or Daybreak? Nope. A brand new performance piece. Goddamn. Shades of the Wildwood (fitting in perfectly with the name) and Wildtrail on ...

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The pair of these Maharam Blazers we shot were definitely in a women's size, so we've jumped the gun and immediately assumed that these are a female release, which might be wishful thinking, but a good pair of the pioneering Nike court release always looks good on the opposite sex. After the Oregon's subtle stripes, the tonal check pattern on these shoes is far more immediate, but we can only begin to imagine the complexities of the ...

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Sometimes the obvious looking pieces are the ones that impress us the most. For all our disdain regarding the back stories and plotlines behind a design, the latest fruits of Nike's relationship with textile fabric titans Maharam are significantly less in-your-face than the layered AF1 earlier this year, or the blast of pattern towards the rear of their Terminators and Blazer lows with something far more sublime. Part of a trio, which seems perfectly timed for Hov's all ...

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The whole world is dressing like there's an apocalypse coming; workwear and outdoor gear by the ton. And come the 'big one' we won't know who'll lead our party to a new civilization or who'll just sit there, cry and starve. After the Ransom by adidas collection gave the Originals brand a spot of off-road success it seems to have imbued the brand with a new confidence for more rugged designs after pieces like the Centennial ...

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Because we're quaint binge-drinking British types, pubs figure heavily in our London shoe. That rubberised cotton upper and the overall cut are straight-up drinkery fodder - that red pig suede on the original wasn't made to take the spills and scuffs of even the most-well intentioned visit to the boozer, and was a serious consideration during the creative process. Seeing as we're putting it, and the other fine Consortium 'City Series' models, on sale in a few hours ...

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Oomph...adidas just winded us with these Forum makeups. These are things of beauty, and Valhalla for us fanboys of these masterpieces in their mid-cut form. As we understand, these are part of the Tokyo Tech collection for Originals. if you've got these down as KZK-lite, then you right there in the trillion yen Windstopper M65 are way, way, way off the mark. The all nubuck uppers on these makeups, the restrained levels of contrast stitch, confined to the ...

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The Air Max Current is a favourite of ours, but when the rain comes - and boy did it arrive these last few weeks, it's not the ideal shoe pick. To be fair, no mesh runner is built for those conditions. Mr. Ben Drury's no stranger to sneaker design, and as we're keen to reiterate, he's down to do a lot more than apply a palette - as a designer and fan of sports footwear from the humble ...

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Brand Jordan came out firing this year on the retro side of things. In response to our bleating about the state of Jordan Is, we got black/greys and a few metallics for good measure. Then there was the blue IIIs, which had the internet going nuts, shifting from the Crooked Store in record time. That was buoyed by it being a purely regional release. That had to be it for 2009 surely? Nope. Along come the Space Jam XIs ...

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Great. One of our favourite releases of the year isn't even a sneaker, but fear not naysayers, because it's not a giant hobnail boot either and it's built with performance in mind. We've wanted the feature the SFB on Crooked for a while, but this release allowed us the opportunity. This model's been the source of debate in and outside the office. Some couldn't deal with the stealthy tactical boot cut, others were feeling ...

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Top Tens definitely figure in our fantasy league of all-time adi basketball designs, and by god, if we knew anything about American sports, we'd be breaking down the achievements of the top ten players who court tested this bad boy, Messrs. Collins, Grevey, Johnson, Dantley, Lanier, Jones, Knight, Wicks, Kupchak and Washington, plus the man who brought the whole cartel together, hall of famer Rick Barry. But we don't, so we'll stick to the shoe. Next year ...

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Some in the Crooked office are hypocrites. We'll admit it. After spending paragraph after paragraph lambasting Nike's use of the Autoclave sole on inappropriate models like the Force 180 and Flight Lite, we're not too mad at this one. It took a few minutes to realise that they'd been changed because it was a little late in the day when these arrived, and lo, it's a strange alteration giving some 1981 style a spot of ...

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Is Andrew Reynolds related to Burt? It's a rumour we've heard, and he does make an appearance in the Bank Holiday staple 'Cop And A Half' with the big man? We're probably just frontside flipping to conclusions. Andrew doesn't need celeb affiliations anyway - he's the man. Go check his 'Epicly Later'd's for superior screen time. As honcho of Altamont and Baker, the man's got his own uncompromising aesthetic going on, and he ...

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Two key adidas models for two very different disciplines that were once unattainable objects of desire for those craving footwear supremacy, the ZX 800 and Conductor represented for the top-of-the-line at competition/training running and court level circa 1987. From London Posse in their Big Life days at Leicester Square station in the ZXs to Def Jam royalty sporting the chunky hi-tops for Friedman portraits, they also maintain a certain cultural cache. Curiously, despite an onslaught of recent retros, we ...

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You might have clocked these on the site when they went up erroneously last week, but these Gourmet selections are excellent, and another one with crossover appeal minus compromise. These moc-toed boot styles take unorthodox designer cues and fuse them with a staple, rugged upper and a vulcanized sole unit; 2009's two ubiquitous footwear styles, and trends unlikely to subside in the new year. It's a testament to team Gourmet's discerning collective vision that they even manage ...

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Sal Barbier's debut signature model has been through a lot of changes these last few years. After it was retroed well around the middle of the decade and languished on the saleracks, it made a return as part of an In4mation double-label project that saw the shoe slimmed-down. As a disclaimer, it wasn't slimmed down in the more extreme way that adidas sleeked out, say, the Stan Smith (sticking a pointy toe on it in one notorious example ...

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It's easy to bask in the same pool of collaborators time and time again, but Onitsuka seem to be keen to take a risk or two with some recent projects, and while the sleeker, fancier side of tiger output isn't made with us in mind, we'll always have a great deal of respect for the brand as a bonafide performance pioneer that, lest we forget, in a complicated way, was key to Nike's birth. Azita isn ...

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On seeing these in the Nike showroom we'll concede that these didn't do a lot for us, mainly because we're old stick-in-the-muds who tend to forget that 2004 wasn't last week, but was in fact half a decade ago, and we felt that the bacon Max was a little too recent for an homage of that unsurpassed colourway. Because we're fickle, if it had been on a straight-up Huarache we probably would have done the ...

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You'll note that this is a look at three of the four Consortium shoes that make up the third 'Your City' drop. The fourth model; our own Crooked take on the London was studied in-depth via the News yesterday, and there's plenty more time to look at it on the run up to its release. So we'll stick to the VA, Colette and Livestock for today's entry. Reworking the Tokio Low, Paris and Toronto respectively, these ...

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2013

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crooked tongues magazine News Features

CT BEST OF '09 - Vans Ray Barbee Vault Collection Q&A

CT BEST OF '09 - Patta AM1 Q&A

CT BEST OF '09 - Livestock adidas Toronto Q&A

CT BEST OF '09 - Gourmet Quadici Q&A

CROOKED TONGUES YEAR IN REVIEW 2009

Nike Zoom Kobe V 'Christmas Day'

Nike Zoom Kobe V

adidas Consortium 'Classic Runners' Pack

Reebok GL 6000

adidas Greeley Mid Q&A

Nike Sportswear Lunar Wood TZ

Nike Sportswear Maharam Blazer Hi

Nike Sportswear Maharam Oregon Waffle

adidas Hike Spezial

adidas Consortium Crooked Tongues London release...

More adidas Forum Mids...

Nike Sportwear x Ben Drury Air Max Current Premium - Ben Drury Q&A

Jordan XI 'Space Jam'

Nike SFB Zip TZ

adidas Top Ten Hi

Nike Magma AC

Emerica Reynolds Cruisers

adidas ZX 800 & Conductor Hi

Gourmet Dicinove

etnies SAL Slim

Onitsuka Tiger & Azita X-Caliber

NSW DQM Air Max 90 Current Huarache

adidas Consortium 'Your City' - Third Drop

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